Boulder County expects a $56.1 million gap in flood recovery funding

By John Fryar, Times-Call staff writer

Posted:
08/05/2014 03:41:57 PM MDT

Edge Contracting workers Gino Pacheco, left, and Ruben Aguirre look at the blueprints while building a dam to re-rout the flood-diverted river to its original path for the Lefthand Water District on March 10 on Lefthand Canyon Drive. (Jeremy Papasso / Daily Camera)

If you go

What: Boulder County commissioners will hold public hearings on whether to advance a new countywide flood-recovery sales tax and an extension of the county's existing human services safety-net property tax to November's general election ballot.

Boulder County faces a nearly $56.1 million gap in what it will spend on flood response and recovery projects and what it can expect to be reimbursed for, according to projections presented to the Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday.

County staffers presented the board with projections that through the year 2017, Boulder County will have spent $217.3 million on responding to and recovering from last September's floods.

Much of that amount will eventually be reimbursed by various federal and state disaster-response agencies and budget accounts.

But officials told the commissioners that while as much as $161.2 million of that total is expected to be eligible to be reimbursed — about 74 percent — that'll still leaves the county with a $56 million shortfall by the end of 2017.

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Adding to the financial crunch, county officials have said, is the fact that Boulder County must often pay the entire costs of flood-recovery projects up front and will get the full federal and state reimbursements only after federal and state agencies complete their reviews and approvals of the way the county dollars were spent on each reimbursable project.

Boulder County is in the midst of "a huge set of projects that are going to be ongoing" over the next several years of flood-response work, said Commissioner Cindy Domenico.

Domenico and Commissioners Elise Jones and Deb Gardner indicated that their staff's latest projections underscore the need to consider asking Boulder County voters' approval of a temporary countywide flood recovery sales and use tax, to be collected over several years, to relieve those cash-flow problems and cover the projected shortfall.

The commissioners have scheduled a public hearing for next Tuesday afternoon on the issue of whether to advance such a flood-recovery tax to November's general election ballot.

While the exact amount of a proposed flood-recovery sales tax that might be sought hadn't yet been determined, the commissioners last month discussed a possible 0.15 percent sales tax that would generate an estimated $30 million total over five years' time, as well as a 0.25 percent sales and use tax that would raise a projected $33 million total over three years.

On Tuesday, the commissioners directed the county staff to prepare a sales-tax proposal for next week's hearing that would provide enough revenue to cover the majority of the projected $56.1 million shortfall in flood-recovery spending reimbursements now expected to accumulate by the end of 2017.

"In order to cover the necessary cost of rehabilitation, recovery and resiliency in our communities, Boulder County will need to rely on the public's help," Jones said in a statement after the meeting. "To secure a prosperous future for the county and assure the success and well-being of our residents, it is imperative that we move forward quickly with recovery and rebuilding efforts that will leave us an even stronger, more resilient community."

The commissioners and Sheriff Joe Pelle, who spoke to them about the money it costs to respond to disasters like wildfires and flooding, stressed that they also want to be sure they have enough money available in the county budget's general fund reserve to pay the costs of any future emergencies that might occur while Boulder County is still spending dollars on flood recovery.

"Our ability to manage a major event is dependent on using reserve funds," Pelle said.

A flood-recovery sales tax isn't the only question the commissioners may advance to Boulder County voters' fall ballots. The board also is considering asking for an extension of a human services safety net tax, a 0.9 mill property tax levy that voters originally approved in 2010 that generates about $5 million a year and that is set to expire in 2015.

The commissioners will also hold a public hearing next Tuesday on whether to put that safety-net tax extension on the ballot.

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